At Capitol, White House, security holds

Charles J. Lewis

Updated 10:39 pm, Thursday, October 3, 2013

WASHINGTON -- The failed effort by a woman to crash into the White House and then elude Capitol police showed that the extensive security blanket in the nation's capital did its job, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Thursday.

"I will say that both at the White House and at the Capitol, the security perimeters worked," Lanier told reporters. "They did exactly what they were supposed to do, and they stopped a suspect from breaching the security perimeters ... in a vehicle at both locations."

The case started when the driver attempted to crash through the outer protective barriers at 15th and E streets on the east side of the White House, near the Treasury Department, Lanier said. When that effort failed, the driver wheeled around and sped toward the Capitol. Members of the Capitol police force blocked her car, but she eluded them and the chase continued. Shortly afterward, she crashed the car and was shot and killed by police.

Against the background of four presidential assassinations and the steady barrage of death threats directed at every president, the Secret Service has imposed an escalating security shield around the first family and the White House.

After the 1983 attack on the U.S. Marine barracks at the Beirut, Lebanon, airport killed 241 U.S. service members and showed the lethality of suicide bombers plowing through security lines, the Secret Service constructed two blocks of stout cement pillars along the Pennsylvania Avenue curb in front of the White House.

After the 1995 truck bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people, demonstrating what kind of damage a truck bomb could inflict from the street, the Secret Service closed Pennsylvania Avenue to all vehicles.

Security at the Capitol grounds, meanwhile, has been a top concern of congressional leaders since 1954, when Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the gallery of the House of Representatives, injuring four congressmen.

In 1998, two members of the 3,000-strong Capitol police force were fatally shot during an attack by a lone gunman who continues to be held in an institution after being found to be severely schizophrenic. That attack spurred the construction of the massive underground Capitol visitors center that serves as a security checkpoint for visitors entering the Capitol building. The 580,000-square-foot structure opened in 2008 at a cost of almost $700 million.

Security concerns increased after investigators concluded that one of the hijacked airliners in the 9/11 attacks of 2001 was headed for the Capitol before it crashed in Pennsylvania. Since then, police cars patrol the 47-square-block area 24 hours a day, patrol officers carry heavy weapons and all visitors are subjected to TSA-level magnetometers before gaining entrance to congressional buildings.

On Thursday, Capitol police, who are classified as essential employees, were on the job at full strength despite the federal government shutdown. Their pay, however, will be deferred until the shutdown ends.